[Advaita-l] Taittiriya Upanishad question

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

I feel our discussions sometimes tend to prescribe how a jnani should be.

>  dont you think we have to do this exercise to differentiate the genuine 
jnAni-s from the charlatans, who, in the name of god & religion engaging 
themselves in every questionable activity and justifying the same!! And 
jnAni-s are the role models for the ordinary mortals like us, if he, in 
the name of prArabdha karma, doing all sorts of gibberish work, what is 
the use of krishna's definition of sthitha prajna in geeta??  Once, Sri 
Vidya prabhuji has told me, though it is very difficult to pick genuine 
jnAni among the mass, it is not that much difficult to find out the 
impostors!! 

When such discussions used to take place Bhagavan Ramana used to quip "Let 
jnani look after himself. You look after yourself first".

> I do agree that we the loukika-s do not have any authority to scale the 
credence of the jnAni..but, we the mortals would definitely  look for 
guidance from the shreshTa-s and try to follow what they do!! 
yadyadAcharati shreshTaH......sa yatpramANam kurute lOkastadanu 
vartate..says geetAchArya.  If the jnAni engages in 'gOdhUli saMbhOga' and 
blames it on his prArabdha karma, dont we, the ordinary mortals, find the 
same reason for all our illegitimate activities also prabhuji?? 

Jnani is said to be free. It means he is free to कर्तुम्, 
अकर्तुम्,
अन्यथाकर्तुम्, i.e.,  to do, not to do or to do anything else 
he likes.

>  No, jnAni never ever engages himself in any shAtra bAhira or dharma 
bAhira act..this is what shankara clarifies in sUtra bhAshya.  kartum, 
akartum, anyathAkartum will well be within the boundaries of shAstravidhi 
though he (the jnAni) is beyond the shAstra & dharma.

Though lay people's dos and don'ts are not binding on a jnani, he appears
to follow them for our sake I think.

>  yes, you are right prabhuji, now you tell me, if he does something 
which is quite contrary to dharma vihita/ shAstra vihita and later on pass 
the buck on his 'prArabdha karma' how many of us going to understand this 
prArabdha karma theory of jnAni & accept him as genuine jnAni:-))

They can be बालोन्मत्तपिशाचवत्.

>  IMO, the jnAni-s who are always factually in either bAla bhAva, unmatta 
bhAva or pishAcha bhAva would not be recognised as 'jnAni-s' by us, 
instead we think that he is someway abnormal :-))  If A jnAni behaves like 
a child and always asks for ice creams, peppermint without a word of 
tattva or some occassional pavada-s who is going to take him as a jnAni, 
instead we just think this person is mentally immature and needs 
treatment:-), if a jnAni is always unmattavat without a dose of 
tattvOpadesha and miracles, we just think him as a dipsomaniac and refer 
him to a rehabilitation centre is it not??  and if the jnAni always does 
all devilish things due to his 'pishAcha' like bhAva, who is going to 
follow him??  As far as possible we avoid such person and if it goes 
beyond control, we never hesitate to lodge a police complaint to get rid 
of him :-)) is it not?? 

>  So, what I am trying to say here is though there is no stipulated rules 
& regulations for the jnAni,  we, the mortals, would like to recognise the 
'jnAni' through some inherent qualities that we understood from shAstra & 
AchryOpadesha. And one of those qualities is, says the lord in geeta : 
prajahAti yadA kAmAn sarvAn manOgatAn, AtmanyevAtmanA tushtaH..He is Apta 
kAma, he is krutakrutya that is the reason why he is called 'sthitha 
prajna'.

regards,
Sarma.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar